Tag Archives: movies

The End

19 Dec

Documentary director turns to fiction and makes it sing of guilt for climate destruction

Long, overindulgent and absolutely riveting, the first feature film by Harvard grad Joshua Oppenheimer is hard to make heads or tails of as it explores life after the end of the world. The cinematic visionary who blew audiences away with his imaginative documentaries on the Indonesian death squads of the 1960s (“The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence,” both Oscar nominated) saddles up with Tilda Swinton, it boy George McKay of “1917” – already having a banner year with “The Beast” and the hard-hitting “Femme” to his credit – and Michael Shannon, who starred in the similarly themed, “Take Shelter” (2011). They play Mother, Son and Father, respectively. Along with “Nightbitch,” also currently in theaters, this no-name concept seems to be the arthouse convention du jour. 

We catch up with the trio living the posh life in a bunker a half-mile underground after the rest of the world has been burned to a crisp. The shelter is in the labyrinth of an abandoned salt mine bought presciently decades ago by Father, a former oil exec (who, by proximity, had a hand in the incineration of humankind). Son was born in the bowels of that salt mine, and the well-tended-to trio are not alone in their enclave. With them are a doctor (Lennie James, “The Walking Dead”), a cook (Bronagh Gallagher) and a butler (Tim McInnerny, “Gladiator II”). Everything  for the most is safe and good, and their biggest discomfort is the bitter sourness of the wine they vinify. Then an interloper drops in – almost literally. The arrival of the young woman known as Girl (Moses Ingram) is not welcomed. Mother and Father have a xenophobic policy and initially restrain and restrict Girl; eventually they admit her into their midst, where as you can guess, sexual tensions with Son rise quickly and cause social dynamics and routines to shift.

Did I mention that “The End” – not to be confused with the similarly titled and themed 2013 film “This is the End” starring Jonah Hill and James Franco – is a musical? For his two Indonesian hit-squad docs, Oppenheimer stepped outside the boundaries of nonnarrative convention and gave former squad leaders resources (money and cameras) to make their own films depicting their recollection of their parts in the bloody overthrow. One made a garish musical with former killers dressed in drag and singing alongside the cascading waters of a grand waterfall. Could that have been the inspiration for the cast of “The End” to break into song in the dusty corridors of a salt mine? The probability is too overwhelming to deny. 

The overall fabric of “The End” is not too far from L.Q. Jones’s postapocalyptic“A Boy and His Dog” (1975), in which Don Johnson as that “boy” discovers an underground Eden and ultimately upends an order serving mostly an elite few. Besides the gender role swap, the other notable delta between the films is the causality for eradication – global nuclear annihilation or human-triggered climate change catastrophes. Oppenheimer doesn’t harangue the audience by climbing onto the climate change pulpit, a theme more clearly held off in the corner of the frame. For his microsociety, there’s no wrestling with what-ifs, because it’s already happened, but members have guilt and admit to things they did that led to the perishing of others. 

Given the texture of his films, it’s clear that the cleansing power of confession is something that drives Oppenheimer – it was the thing he sought to educe from Indonesian militia leaders after decades of denial. The result in those films was stunning, emotionally impactful and horrific; here, narrative artifice diminishes that impact, but “The End” is effectual in its own right. It is gorgeously framed and shot, with near period-piece delicacy, and the performers create sharp characters and prove quite capable when dropping into song. The offset between Swinton’s subtle, ethereal otherworldliness and Shannon’s gruff bristle takes a while to digest, but serves the film well. “The End” does go on a bit too long for the concept, but effectively provokes with themes of isolationism, empowered entitlement and one’s responsibility to a fellow human, as well as stewardship of the vast blue orb we’ve indelibly infected through negligence and avarice.

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Short Takes

14 Dec

“Queer” and “Nightbitch”

‘Queer’ (2024)

Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William Burroughs’ semiautobiographical novella is a steamy walk on the wild side set in 1950s Mexico City and destinations south. Bond guy Daniel Craig goes all-in as Burroughs alter ego William Lee, a compulsive yet civil expat with means and a predatory tick. For those who wondered what Craig would do after letting go of 007, “Queer” signals something more than just the bawdy good fun of his Benoit Blanc romps (“Knives Out,” “Glass Onion”). Here, the actor turns in a bold change-up that’s more than worthy of awards banter. Lee has relocated to Mexico, because – at the time – it was one of the few havens for a man of stature wanting to pursue same-sex dalliances as well as illicit drug use without the inherent social and legal persecution that was (and still is?) rife and looming in the states. Beyond the bustling “queer” community Lee’s embedded in, he can score smack or coke easily around the corner, a real win-win for a gentlemanly hedonist. The film’s broken into three chapters, the first two focusing on Lee’s obsessive pursuit of a tall, sculpted, younger lad by the name of Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), another American hanging out in Mexico City trying to work out their place in the world and through the bigger ideological issues that confronted Burroughs and his fellow Beats. For a good long while, Allerton remains at an arm’s length, aloof and just out of reach, but “Queer” morphs into something of a buddy road trip as we steer into the third chapter and the pair head to Ecuador and Panama with the goal of greater euphoria and enlightenment (and telepathy, Lee hopes). The circumstances that led Burroughs to Mexico, and to write “Queer,” are intriguing: He had just accidentally shot and killed his wife, Joan Vollmer, during a drunken game of Willam Tell (leading also to Burroughs’ 1954 novel, “Naked Lunch,” adapted adroitly to the screen by David Cronenberg in 1991). Given its content, “Queer” would not get published until 1985. Guadagnino, who’s skilled at projecting carnivorous carnality on screen (“Suspiria,” “Challengers,” “Bones and All”), simmers up a slow-building character study steeped in lust and drugs. As with all the Italian auteur’s films, “Queer” is crafted gorgeously from a cinematic standpoint, but its dips into surrealism late in the film are narratively awkward. There’s a thinness and slight disjointedness that at times threaten to pull one out, but even those foibles are offset easily by Craig’s screen-consuming commitment to the part.

‘Nightbitch’ (2024)

Rachel Yoder’s novel, which touched a nerve about the disproportional contributions the male and the female of the species make when it comes to child rearing, looked primed for the big screen with Amy Adams cast in the lead and the capable Marielle Heller to direct. Heller, as you may recall, blazed her way onto the screen with the intimate 2015 coming-of-age drama “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” but here, with Yoder’s experimental text about a mother who may or may not be transforming into a dog (thus the title), domestic themes dealing with the onus of matronly nurture, the male provider complex and even the glass ceiling feel contrived and forced. “I don’t want to be trapped inside a 1950s marriage,” says Adams’ Mother (the characters have no names) to her clueless husband (Scoot McNairy). He’s not a bad guy, but does regularly drop into video game oblivion as Mother, ever put upon (or so that’s the lens of the film), tends to their 2-year-old. “Nightbitch” is a deeply internal film, with Mother reflecting regularly on (and brooding about) her status and the relative (in)equality in the homestead. The kick comes when she starts to commune with the pack of dogs that roam her suburban neighborhood; later her teeth get sharp and pointy, meat becomes a must munch, patches of fur begin to spring up here and there and there’s the unsavory discovery of a burgeoning tail. “An American Werewolf in London” (1981), this is not. The context of what is real and what is not is often hard to glean – and more so, you just don’t care. Sure, it’s a clear manifestation of Mother’s emotional state and a bigger metaphor for the unrecognized burden of motherhood being taking for granted, but as presented it’s lazily murky, unlike how Mary Harron’s “American Psycho” (2000) deftly blurred reality, delusion and the externalization of emotional anxiety. Adams puts in a game effort, but Mother’s not that deep or interesting, and neither is McNairy’s husband, resulting in a generic couple living generic lives and going through generic ennui. The pooch stuff, as rendered, feels tacked-on. As a feminist poke, “Nightbitch” makes its point, but not convincingly so. It’s frustrating to watch the talented Adams (“Arrival,” “American Hustle”) dig deep only to get collared by a flat script, and the cinematic act of going from reality to body-morphing alter reality should have been punched up more. “Nightbitch” whimpers slowly into the night, a fangless could-have-been. 

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Short Takes

5 Dec

“Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,” “Small Things Like These” and “The Lost Children”

‘Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World’ (2024)

A sardonically black political comedy that’s right out of left field, powered by witty takes on hot topics (Andrew Tate, Putin and Pornhub, to name a few) and a killer performance by Ilinca Manolache, without whom the movie could not be. Manolache plays Angela, a feisty Romanian woman looking to make it in the gig economy as a filmmaker and TikTok sensation. Her main hustle is as a production assistant for a company that makes safety videos, kind of – on many shoots, Angela coaches accident victims, often in wheelchairs, to talk about the safety measures they should have taken to have avoided injury versus the clear negligence of the employer to provide a safe workplace. They’re more CYAs than PSAs, and that’s the degree of biting humor imbued by writer-director Radu Jude (“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”).

When we meet Angela, she’s buck naked, on her bedside table is Proust, a half-drunk beer and a glass of wine. From her unapologetic posture as she drags herself out from under the covers at 5 a.m. we know she’s a take-no-shit sort. Donning a sequin dress, Angela wills her way through the day, which includes several safety shoots, chatting with director Uwe Boll about beating the bejesus out of critics who take exception to his lowly regarded films (“BloodRayne,” “Alone in the Dark”), a quickie in her SUV, where nearly half the film takes place, and frequent TikTok dispatches as her evil alter-ego, a bald, bushy-browed incel named Bobiţă who boasts of sexual conquests and hanging out with Tate, the controversial purveyor of all things manly and macho.

Jude employees a unique stylistic palette to frame his modern absurdity; much of Angela in transit is shot in matted black-and-white (reminiscent of Pawel Pawlikowski’s wonderful “Cold War”) while her TikTok and safety videos are shot in color. Jude too infuses footage from the 1981 film “Angela Goes On” about a female cab driver in communist Romania. The thematic juxtaposition (of constantly driving and having a hard time getting from point A to point B) is all about the bureaucratic nonsense that confronts and confounds the two Angelas back during the days of Ceaușescu’s police state and in the capitalist now.

Manolache, who feels like she could slide easily into an early Almodovar or classic Fellini romp, is all-in as the foul-mouthed Angela, full of vim and palpable vigor, and quite muscular and confident in the way she defines her womanhood and place in society. Along with Mickey Madison’s bravura turn in “Anora,” it’s the most pop-off-the-screen performance by an actress this year – Angela and Anora could easily team up and rule the world, and given where we’re heading, that would likely be a good thing.

The ending long take, a filming of a PSA at the site of an accident, is the most somber and dark absurdity in the film, with telling plays on Putin and Ukraine, American TV and the devious use of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” placards to further victimize and subjugate the maligned.

‘Small Things Like These’ (2024)

Based on Claire Keegan’s novel about the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, this project directed by Tim Mielants draws emotional depth from an all-in performance by star Cillian Murphy, nearly even more internalized and conflicted here than he was for his Oscar win as Oppenheimer in the Christopher Nolan-helmed biopic last year. The Laundries were a series of so-called asylums for wayward girls, unwed mothers and “fallen women” (former sex workers, recovering addicts, etc.) run by nuns. Keegan’s story targets their sordid history of using women as indentured labor, housing them in prisonlike lockdowns and often taking their babies forcibly from them so the institution could profit from the adoptions. The misdeeds are revealed through the meanderings of Bill Furlong (Murphy), a merchant in 1985 Ireland who provides one such institution with coal. Seeking a signature for an order one day, he witnesses a girl being dragged across the hall screaming. She mouths to him for help. For a frozen second he thinks to act, but the steely eyed sister in charge (Emily Watson) swoops in to explain things away with a cup of tea. Later, Bill discovers a young pregnant girl shackled in the coal shed – yep, it’s that kind of shop of little horrors. Then there’s Bill’s own backstory, his five daughters (his wife is played by Eileen Walsh, who starred in 2002’s “The Magdalene Sisters,” a film that went at the same subject), which serve as a point of reflection and increasing concern, and the boy down the street, often shoeless and starving. Much of what appears quiet, composed and buttoned-down is anything but. The Magdalene Laundries operated from the 1800s to, amazingly, up through the 1990s. In scope, as Mielants and Keegan (“The Quiet Girl”) tell it, “Small Things Like These” feels not too far off from our own Catholic Church abuse scandal (“Spotlight”): cover-ups over decades, victimization of the vulnerable and the leveraging of religious righteousness to make it happen. It’s a somber weaving of disturbing discoveries, but not one without threads of humanity and compassion brought to the screen by Murphy’s deeply emotive performance.

‘The Lost Children’ (2024)

A hackneyed documentary about the incredible true story of survival by four children (ages 11 months to 13 years) in the Colombian rainforest for 40 days after their plane crashed in May of last year. The three adults aboard (including the pilot and the mother of the Indigenous children) perished upon impact. The Colombian military takes up the search and are later joined by a legion of Indigenous volunteers. Directed by Orlando von Einsiedel, Jorge Duran and Lali Houghton, the film focuses hard on this point to showcase the jungle knowledge of the Indigenous searchers and their unease working with the military because, as the film has it, the factions have been at opposite sides of conflicts over decades. Specifics are never really provided, which is one of the film’s major annoyances. The dramatic recreations of the search feel sloppy and staged (often people in arguably real footage have their faces blurred), though the wildlife photography is top shelf. The reason to stay with the film is the chilling footnote that the children’s father and stepfather, Manuel Ranoque, initially at the fore of the search and a seeming heroic figure, is accused (by talking heads, the mother’s aunt and sister) as an abuser, suggesting the children could be evading the search effort to avoid him. The dubbing is mumblecore awful and the staging of Indigenous rituals and ways borders on exploitative arrogance, even though it ostensibly aims to be embracing.

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Gladiator II

21 Nov

Ridley Scott takes a stab at a sequel 24 years after Crowe, but going not quite as deep

Not sure that “Gladiator,” the Oscar-winning sword-and-sandal revenge epic starring Russell Crowe, needed a sequel, but the fates, furies and a cadre of calculating Hollywood studio execs have deemed it so with a clear, hopeful eye on a box-office bang-up. It’s not on par with its 2000 predecessor, but the script by David Scarpa, who collaborated last year on “Napoleon” with director Ridley Scott (still cranking them out well into his 80s), does connect the dots smartly with blood and purpose. We find ourselves 20-something years since the events of the last film that concluded with the death of Crowe’s Colosseum warrior, Maximus after killing hedonistic, self-interested Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and, in theory, restoring the voice of democracy to the senate and the people. What’s happened in the interim is anything but: Rome is run by two foppishly fey brothers, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), man-boys with a penchant for mascara, bloodshed and monkeys. Taking a step back, it’s eerie to realize how much that paradigm feels all too close and reflective of our new now – earmarking the struggle for democracy as pervasive throughout humankind’s brief, short history.

G2 begins with the siege of Numidia (Northern Africa) by Roman legions led by general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), a dutiful soldier whose political ideals don’t align with those of the decadent, indulgent twin emperors, though he seems all-in on the expansion of the republic. Galleons crash into a seawall, flaming boulders are catapulted, arrows fly and swords get crossed. The resistance is fervent and game, led in part by a farmer-military tactician named Hanno (a beefed up Paul Mescal, of “Aftersun” and “Foe”) whose wife (Yuval Gowen) likewise straps on the lorica segmentata and joins the fray, but Marcus and his troops overwhelm the seaside city easily. Caught by an arrow, Hanno’s wife is one of the casualties. As a result – just as it was with Maximus – a blood grudge ignites and becomes the film’s plot-driving fire: revenge or death. 

Given the title and what came before, the action heads back to Rome, where Marcus is feted for his feat while Hanno is shackled and thrown into the gladiator pool overseen by Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, a former slave turned gladiator turned backroom fixer and ultimately, shrewd political manipulator. Rhinos, killer baboons and sharks (yes sharks, they flood the Colosseum for one such contest) join the endless legion of hulking Master Blasters the ill-equipped gladiators have to confront. Akin to the Maximus arc, Hanno becomes an arena sensation for his fortitude, smartly engineered victories (baboon biting not withstanding) and fanciful beheadings. But as this is old Rome, the real violence is what goes on behind gauzy veils in unofficial councils where schemes within schemes are hatched. Macrinus, who seems to have a J. Edgar Hoover-sized file on everyone in town, plays the ends against the means, promising Hanno his shot at Marcus if he can survive long enough; Marcus, angered by mass corruption and injustice, weighs an insurrection to return Rome to its starving masses. Marcus’ wife, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Commodus and Maximus’ love-interest in G1, it turns out, has blood ties to Hanno (the movie tries to obfuscate this point until midway in, but the plot twist – which I won’t tip – is as clear as day, early on).

The machinations feed and play off each other with Shakespearean overtones. Washington’s performance even feels like a kitschy extension of his 2021 performance in “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” He chews the screen while Mescal simmers, seethes and burns. This is Mescal’s first big studio film, and while he’s up to the task, his Hanno doesn’t have the gravelly gravitas of Crowe’s Maximus; he’s mono-focused whereas Maximus seemed to legitimately play the long game. As Marcus, Pascal is dour and soulful in the thin, thankless part that is mostly tinder fanned to fuel the plot. It’s Nielsen, classic and captivating, who shines with a bigger part to play. It’s her uneasy and evolving relationship with Hanno that becomes the film’s emotional epicenter.

Like “Napoleon,” there’s a lot packed into “Gladiator II.” Not all of it sticks. The overly sexualized identities of the two emperors (and others), gets far too close to the hyperbolic tipping point (think “Caligula”) and stokes the embers of gender politics that so roiled and divided our nation two weeks ago. Then there’s the matter of seemingly unlimited access to Hanno in his cordoned-off jail cell between contests, where Lucilla and Marcus continually score covert meetings despite the emperors’ forbidding. As far as history goes, Nielsen and Mescal’s characters were true historic figures, as was Commodus, but the plotlines and narrative in the two “Gladiators” are all historical fiction. It’s too bad we can’t turn the page like Scott and Scarpa and rescript this moment.

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Short Takes

16 Nov

“Memoir of a Snail” and “A Real Pain”

‘Memoir of a Snail’ (2024)

Not a claymation curio for the whole family, nor a sequel to “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (2021). No, this very dark and adult animated tale of twins separated after the death of their father and placed in foster care has edgy, plot-driving incursions into swinging, fat feeding, pyromania and religious zealotry. The film is wickedly funny at times but tenderly bittersweet, with deeply realized characters. The casting, an inspired all-star slate from Down Under,  pairs “Succession” star Sarah Snook and Kodi Smit-McPhee (“Power of the Dog”) as Grace and Gilbert Pudel, fraternal twins born with health issues and bullied at school. Mom died early and dad, a street performer who struggles to keep the family afloat, succumbs a few years later; Grace and Gilbert get placed with families at opposite ends of Australia. Much of the film is told through the longing letters between the two, desperate to reunite. Neither is in an ideal situation. Gilbert lives with Calvinist religious zealots who want to “pray the gay out” and abusively employ him as indentured labor on their apple orchard. Grace lives pretty much on her own in a nice house, because her absentee foster parents are swingers and darting constantly out to key parties or nudist retreats. Her bestie is an 80-year-old firecracker named Pinky (a brilliant Jacki Weaver), whose tale of how she earned the nickname and a sidebar about having sex with John Denver in a helicopter are uproarious delights. Directed by Adam Elliot, making a strong impression with his second feature, “Memoir of a Snail” is agile in construct and scrumptious to behold – “The Nightmare Before Christmas” good. The “shell” theme about the personal baggage we all carry around with us and how we withdraw or put up walls is a bit thinly etched, but the movie’s sibling bond is strongly felt. It’s like the dark, loving embrace of Tim Burton done with the edgy verve of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It’s also one of the best films you can see in a theater now.

‘A Real Pain’ (2024)

Another film featuring a “Succession” star (in addition to Sarah Snook in “Memoir of a Snail” and “The Apprentice,” starring Jeremy Strong in an Oscar-worthy turn, now on Amazon Prime). Kieran Culkin stars opposite Jessie Eisenberg (“The Social Network”) as Benji to his David, cousins who sojourn to Poland to visit the house their Holocaust-surviving grandmother lived in and connect with their Jewish roots. The two are cut from vastly different cloths; Benji is slack, conflicted and seemingly adrift, whereas David is rooted (married, with a child) and tightly wound. We never get the full details of their stateside profiles, but they don’t much matter and you can fill in the blanks easily given their dynamic. The pair signs onto a Holocaust tour led by an amiable guide (Will Sharpe) who, along with a survivor of the Rwandan civil war (Kurt Egyiawan) examining the toll of genocide in other parts of the world, are the only two who do not have personal, Jewish ties to Poland. In the group too is Jennifer Grey of “Dirty Dancing” fame as a middle-aged woman going through a tough divorce. Benji sidetracks the group regularly with his raffish whims – posing for photos at a statue of liberating soldiers as if part of the platoon, or requesting that the guide dig into the souls of Holocaust victims and tell their story rather than just reciting their names from a register. He becomes something of the group’s mercurial class clown, though many of his politely peevish plays are sparked by seeds of genuine emotional intelligence. He’s an amiable lost boy and clearly one subject of the film’s title. As youths, he and David used to be closer, but given time, space and the arc of life, have grown apart, so “the pain” refers also to Benji’s loneliness and the pair’s fraying over the years as well as the inherent trauma of digging into the atrocities of the past. The film, written and directed by Eisenberg, has a talky, European meandering feel to it, a bit like those Linklater films that paired Ethan Hawke with Julie Delpy – people who care deeply for each other yet who talk around a topic. Eisenberg also avoids making the Holocaust a didactic distraction with leaden exposition. It’s present in every frame, but “A Real Pain” is a character study first. Eisenberg, cutting just his second feature, does a solid job of balancing the tale with the looming shadow of world-changing events. It’s a journey of revelation and reconnection that works on the strength of authentic, awkward chemistry between its two leads.

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Short Takes

8 Nov

“The Wild Robot,” “Don’t Move” and “Woman of the Hour”

‘The Wild Robot’ (2024)

A very “Wall-E”-esque pleaser with something to say about humans, machines, emotional intelligence and environmental stewardship. Marrying all that together is an AI ’bot named Roz (voiced by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, “12 Years a Slave,” “Us”) whose shipping container is tossed overboard during a storm, marooning her on a remote island with rich Northeastern biodiversity (pinewoods, bears, beavers, geese and possums) that feels right out of Camden, Maine. Roz is a home helper droid made by a megacompany like Amazon to perform tasks such as making beds, building sheds, shearing sheep and so on. Borrowing a page from Isaac Asimov, the semihumanoid robot (think a rounder C-3PO with spindly arms and legs) has a “do no harm” rule – or close enough. Stranded in a humanless remote, Roz reprograms herself to learn animal lingo and learns that the fauna refer to her as “the monster.” In the awkward dance of finding a task to do, tragic happenstance has Roz becoming the mother imprint for a runt gosling named Brightbill (Kit Connor). The to-do then teaching the hatchling how to forage for food, swim and ultimately fly, because the fall migration is around the corner. Other geese don’t think Brightbill is long for this world and bully him, while hanging close to Roz is Fink (“Mandalorian” Pedro Pascal), a fox posing as a knowing adviser when his true intent is a fast meal. Roz’s transmitter to HQ keeps dropping out or breaking, which ultimately brings to the island a maintenance droid (Stephanie Hsu, “The Menu”) that’s not a fan of Roz developing emotionally. Issues of AI and the environment are at the fore, without pulling focus from the central core bonding of Roz, Fink and Brightbill. The animation, as orchestrated by Oscar nominee Chris Sanders (“Lilo & Stitch,” “How to Train Your Dragon”) is well-envisioned and robust and likely to earn him another nod (though it’ll have some real competition from the Latvian gem “Flow” that just played The Brattle). But the heart of the film is castaway Roz, a tin woodswoman who becomes emotionally aware.

‘Don’t Move’ (2024)

Nice-guy serial killers seem to be all the rage. Already this year we’ve had bad dad Josh Hartnett in “Trap,” and “Dating Game” contestant Rodney Alcala in Anna Kendrick’s impressive true-crime-adjacent debut “Woman of the Hour.” Now we get this tale of cat-and-mouse survivorship in which a grieving mother hiking the California mountains (Kelsey Asbille) stands at a ledge contemplating a jump and is talked down sort-of by a dashing, passing-by dad-guy (Finn Wittrock, so fun as one of the two DIY hedge fund knuckleheads in “The Big Short”). Everything’s cordial until they get to the trailhead parking lot and Wittrock’s Richard tases Asbille’s Iris. Iris is zip-tied, tossed in the back of his car and told that he’s going to take her to his cabin, braid her hair and add her to his list of female bodies at the bottom of the lake. Iris gets free and nearly overpowers Richard, and that’s when he hits her with his Plan B: She’s been injected with a paralyzing agent that’s 20 minutes away from kicking in. The film, directed by Brian Netto and Adam Schindler, moves in unpredictable turns as others – a police officer and a fellow cabin owner – cross paths with Richard and Iris. The tension remains high even if elements of the underlying story don’t quite work, including the how and why for Richard’s predilection. Asbille, controversial for her claims of Native Americans origins to shore up her casting as an Indigenous person in the hit series “Yellowstone,” is a bit too glamorous in the part but still compelling, doing much with her large, luminous eyes and trembling lips because, at one point, that’s all she got. It’s not bad, but if you’re on Netflix, “Woman of the Hour” is the better way to spend your time. 

‘Woman of the Hour’ (2023)

Actress Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with this chilling true-crime-adjacent serial-killer thriller set in the late ’70s. Like this year’s “MaXXXine,” it revels in the era’s scummy kitsch and skewers its rampant misogyny. The main event is a “Dating Game” show segment in which a young, aspiring actor named Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) is a reluctant contestant, having signed on at the behest of her agent. If you’ve never seen “The Dating Game” or other indelible shows of the time such as “The Gong Show” and “The Newlywed Game,” they’re peppered with innuendos, evoking a degree of cringeworthiness that’s captured well by Kendrick and writer Ian McDonald. Bachelor No. 1 is a bit of a blockhead who can’t answer a question confidently, No. 2’s not much better, but at least he doesn’t trip over his tongue. Then there’s No. 3, who cleans up, masterfully playing off Sheryl’s wit and verve and turning his adversaries’ miscues to his advantage. He’s also Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), who that year would be arrested and convicted of the murder of six women – and implicated in as many as 130 murders. Of course, he’s Sheryl’s pick. Kendrick and McDonald transform a rote, straight-ahead story into an ever-shifting collage of terror and charm, with cutaways showing Alcala helping a flight attendant move into her apartment, taking snaps of a lonely pregnant woman abandoned by her boyfriend at a national park, and a beach party photo shoot. I don’t need to tell you how these encounters go; it’s how Kendrick decides to shoot and navigate the grimness that matters, as it’s done with subtle, unconventional style and great, visceral affect. Zovatto is a great casting choice and performer, and his Alcala is a natural charmer with a brimming undercurrent of malice – echoing Philip Seymour Hoffman in some of his roles, or Vincent D’Onofrio in “Full Metal Jacket” (1987). Kendrick, not far from her refuses-to-be-a-victim persona of “A Simple Favor” (2018), has some feminist zing as Sheryl, going off script in the final round to ask the bachelors, “What are girls for?” You know Alcala’s a killer early, giving many of his scenes – with his prey, or in the offices of the Los Angeles Times, where he freelances as a photographer – a delectable unpredictability and creepiness. It’s an ambitious and impressive debut for Kendrick, and one that should bear greater casting opportunities for Zovatto.

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Short Takes

13 Oct

“Joker: Folie à Deux,” “The Apprentice” and “Red Rooms”

‘The Apprentice’ (2024)

Not so much a takedown of Donald Trump as a look at the early years of the man who would be president as he morphs from socially awkward entrepreneur to megalomaniac, viewing capitalism and New York City as his oyster to shuck – all under the tutelage of Roy Cohn (thus the film’s title). The film opens with Nixon giving his famous “I am not a crook” speech, the erection of the World Trade Towers and Trump (Sebastian Stan, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Fresh,” and on screen now in “A Different Man”) going door-to-door in a tenement building shaking down low-income residents for back rent. Turns out the Trumps are under suit and facing stiff penalties from the Department of Justice for discriminating against people of color. Trump is enamored with the well-connected Cohn (Jeremy Strong of “Succession”), who served as chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy during his 1950s Red Scare and prosecuted the Rosenbergs, who were executed for espionage. One night he catches the eye of his idol at a swank club and enlists him to represent the family in the suit. To say Cohn employed questionable tactics would be an understatement, but he has advice for the young Trump: Always be attacking; when accused, always deny; and if you lose, claim victory. It seems to have stuck. The films chronicles Trump’s very public fight with Mayor Ed Koch over getting Trump Tower built, his tumultuous first marriage to Ivana (Maria Bakalova, so good at taking down one of Koch’s mayoral successors in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”) and his disavowal of Cohn – a closeted gay man who used homosexual slurs constantly – when he comes down with AIDS. It’s directed by Ali Abbasi, who has done equally dark tales in other lands: “Border” (2018) in Denmark and “Holy Spider” (2022) in Iran. The punchy “Apprentice overall” casts a cynical sheen over the young DJT but feels balanced; as the ego swells and grows into a horrific hubris, that’s when we get the goring of a demagogue akin to Oliver Stone’s “W.” (2008) and Adam McKay’s “Vice” (2018). Stan, often under prosthetic makeup, looks the part (the hair!) but doesn’t quite sound it, yet still holds the film together, while Strong is a captivating, conflicted pit bull as Cohn and steals scenes with every razor-barbed line he fires off. Historical icons such as Andy Warhol and Roger Smith pop up, and Cohn has wild orgies that Trump stumbles into, but it’s the timing of the film so close to an election that may raise eyebrows, considering a pretty graphic sexual assault scene featuring the man who would be our president. That said, it doesn’t really tarnish the man or give him an out. It paints a picture that somehow makes the aspirational DJT somewhat sympathetic and allows us to connect the dots. 

‘Red Rooms’ (2023)

The Nicolas Cage flick “Longlegs” was supposed to revive the serial killer genre, but Cage’s bold acting style wasn’t enough of a jolt. Here, in Pascal Plante’s “Red Rooms,” common genre elements get respun more powerfully. We start by witnessing the binding, torture and killing of a victim over the Internet, except that we don’t: It’s experienced only through the aglow facial expressions of an observer who has paid a fortune on the dark web to revel in the act – a bespoke snuff experience, filled with dismemberment and sexual assault. There’s never blood or gore, which makes the result far more visceral than any gushing arterial spray. Set in Canada’s Quebec province (and mostly in French), Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) is on trial for the murder of three lithe, blonde and blue-eyed teens, because that “look” brings the best price. In court, Chevalier sits in a thick glass cage, as if in a zoo. The trial is open to the public, but there are limited seats that trial junkies such as Clémentine (Laurie Babin) and Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) line up for daily so they can drink in every gory detail. Clémentine is a conspiracy theorist who thinks the gaunt, extraterrestrial-like Chevalier is innocent. Kelly-Anne is a psycho killer fan – a hybristophiliac, if you will – and at one point during the trial, dyes her hair blonde, puts in blue eye contacts and dons a schoolgirl outfit, looking just like the dead daughter of the parents she’s sitting behind. As she’s evicted, Chevalier looks up for the first time, smiles sheepishly and waves to her with a mild, knowing expression. The film’s less about the court case and the details of Chevalier’s deeds and more about Kelly-Anne and her obsession. The film works so effectively for the most part because of Gariépy. Her Kelly-Anne is in fact a part-time model and works out arduously, emanating the cold, detached demeanor that comes with the part. She lives alone, messing around on the Internet where we learn she’s blessed with the hacker skills of a Lisbeth Salander (“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” 2011), and even better at online poker, scoring buckets of bitcoin that pay for her posh high-rise apartment and schedule-free lifestyle. The concept of red rooms is a bit of Internet urban folklore, though the notion of such snuff chambers goes back to David Cronenberg’s 1983 “Videodrome” decades before the Internet bubble. The fact that they exist in Plante’s universe is all the more effective as a backdrop to Kelly-Anne’s enigmatic drive and obsession. Plante knows how to orchestrate a mood and dial up the stakes in small, unsettling shifts, in part by using an immersive score and sound editing. Along with Gariépy’s impeccable performance, “Red Rooms” spins up unspeakable horrors we see only in our mind’s eye. 

‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ (2024)

Joaquin Phoenix picked up a little golden statue for his 2019 spin on Gotham City nemesis The Joker (much as Heath Ledger did in 2009 for “The Dark Knight,” so it’s a pretty good Oscar gig), an origin story directed by “Hangover” helmer Todd Phillips. “Joker” shone a light on the fragile, fragmented mind of Arthur Fleck, abused as a child, steered wrong, isolated, lonely and seething inside. His alter ego became a manifestation of false leads and media hype for entertainment at Fleck’s expense, but also his defense mechanism. As we know from the death of popular late-night-TV show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) at the end of “Joker,” Fleck gets the last bloody laugh, though “Folie à Deux” deals with Fleck’s imprisonment and trial for Franklin’s death. As we catch up, there’s been a made-for-TV movie about The Joker that has the denizens of Gotham riveted, so much so that Lee Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn, played here by Lady Gaga) commits herself to the same facility that Fleck is in, hoping for a meet-and-greet. The two meet during movie night; sparks fly, she gets him, he gets her, they need to escape and get away to a personal paradise, just them two – nothing an act of arson can’t broker. But the bigger deal is Fleck’s very public trial. After being smitten with Lee, he fires his attorney (a dutiful Cathrine Keener in a flat role) and decides to represent himself. There’s not a lot of true action in the film, and anything that has The Joker in makeup and dancing with malice-tinged merriment is an alter-reality where Quinn and Fleck, more often than not, break into song. There’s even one bit ripped from Sonny and Cher. Some of this works, but Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver can’t decide if Fleck is a Forrest Gump who transcends, a maniacal martyr or someone who got screwed by the system. Perhaps all three, and Phoenix toils arduously to shift gears as the filmmakers see fit. The awkward handling of mental illness and Gaga’s take on Quinn are other issues: She’s nowhere near the kitschy Harley Quinn of Margot Robbie in “Birds of Prey” (2020) or “The Suicide Squad” (2021); there is darkness, no question, but it’s not the infectious, high-energy of a Jersey girl but a dourness that doesn’t add up in the end. The film’s biggest hobbling is that its tonal and contextual (and textual) shifts don’t click. It goes out on a limb with bold bravery, and one of the most impressive things is Gaga and Phoenix doing all the songs on set, not in a sound studio; we know Gaga can crush it, and she does, but Phoenix holds his own for the most part and does a pretty neat tap dance to boot. But the bough breaks. 

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Short Takes: “Will & Harper” and “Wolfs”

6 Oct

‘Will & Harper’ (2024)

The Will of the title in Josh Greenbaum’s documentary is “Saturday Night alum” and Ricky Bobby portrayer Will Ferrell; the Harper is a longtime Ferrell pal and former SNL writer who has transitioned at the age of 61. One of the things Harper loved to do as a man was driving across the United States, stopping along the way to drink in various different quarts of Americana in their raw and organic state. The fear is that as a trans woman that might not be as possible. Ferrell, to support his friend, packs two collapsible lawn chairs into a classic old Jeep Wagoner and together they set off. Their conversations are candid, and Harper is incredibly forthcoming with information on the whys of transitioning later in life and the fears that come with it. That said, these two are funny together and know how to play to the camera. Ferrell’s celebrity brings unintended consequences when they go to a Texas steakhouse so Ferrell can try to down a famous 72-ounce steak (that looks like a grim, oily brick) that’s free if you can eat it in under an hour. He strides in with great pomp, dressed as Sherlock Holmes, which draws social media posts by those at the packed steakhouse – which mostly viciously target Harper. The gives pause not only because of the hatred on display, but because the film pushes matters where it feels unwise and even unnecessary. In quieter, more intimate moments, the relationship between Ferrell and Harper is endearing, as is Harper’s journey. It’s clear Harper is in a better, more comfortable place and had a solid support system to make the transition. Whether that translates for others is not explored by the film. Still, “Will & Harper” illuminates challenges, and it warms earnestly. Because of the stars’ comedic origins, there are some pretty well-earned grins to boot. 

‘Wolfs’ (2024)

The charismatic Brad Pitt and George Clooney have teamed up multiple times onscreen, as co-stars in those quirky “Ocean’s” heist capers to Pitt’s minor role in Clooney’s 2002 directorial debut “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and voicing animated characters in the movie “IF” this year. Here, in a reference to Harvey Keitel’s character Winston Wolf in “Pulp Fiction” (1994), they play cleaners hired by different agents to remove a body from an uber-posh New York City hotel penthouse. The MacGuffin that drives the film is a well-respected district attorney, Margaret (Amy Ryan), on her way home to her family one night who, for whatever reason, decides to stop for a drink that turns into a tryst with a young, college-aged kid. There’s barely foreplay when the fling-thing winds up dead on the bedroom floor of a suite that likely costs $10,000 a night. In a panic, Margaret calls a number a fixer-connection gave her and summons Clooney’s cleaner (listed in the credits as “Margaret’s man”). Minutes later Pitt’s grease jobber  keys in even though Margaret tells the knock at the door she’s all set, because he’s employed by the hotel (listed as “Pam’s man,” because Pam, voiced by Frances McDormand, runs the hotel) and it turns out there are cameras everywhere. After much back and forth about who’s going to clean the room (lone wolves like to work alone) Pam insists that the two pair up and just get it done. Job No. 1 is to get Margaret out of her bloody clothes and on her way home to hubby and family. That’s the easy part. Then there’s the body and the matter of four bricks of high-test drugs. The two are dragged out in the dark winter night to chase down a loose end and get the drugs to their owner, keeping the DA and the hotel out of the equation. There’s more gunplay as the film builds, though first comes one long and wild foot chase in which the two pursue a target clad in just briefs and socks through the snow-dusted night. At its core, “Wolfs” is a reluctant buddy flick that’s best when Pitt and Clooney are playing off each other through dialogue and one-upmanship. That works well in the beginning, before the film – directed by Jon Watts (of the recent “Spider-Man” films) – forms into an increasingly pat actioner with some unlikely twists. It’s a neat pairing of talent that could have used more bite. 

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Short Takes: “Rebel Ridge” and “The Union”

22 Sep

‘Rebel Ridge’ (2024)

The latest slow burn from Jeremy Saulnier, the deft hand behind the acclaimed “Blue Ruin” (2013) and “The Green Room” (2015), has the feel of a “Jack Reacher” or “Rambo” film, with a drifter on the wrong side of the law serving up some social justice. The setup is simple, but working out the problem is not. We open with a well-toned young man riding a bicycle through small-town Louisiana. He’s not your typical Lycra warrior – quite the opposite, he pedals with a sense of urgency that goes beyond logging miles; he’s on a mission. The bicyclist, Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre), has $36,000 in an overstuffed backpack, $10,000 of which is to bail out his cousin who’s in on a minor possession charge. Out of nowhere, a cop car taps his bike and throws him. The resolute and hulking Terry, like Rambo and Reacher, is former military, while the cop standing over him looks like a menacing version of Richard Jewell as portrayed by Paul Walter Hauser in the 2019 film by Clint Eastwood. (Nearly every cop in the corrupt town of Shelby Springs seems to have the same stylist and barber save the chief, played by a game Don Johnson, and the lone woman on the force who’s mostly behind a keyboard.) Johnson’s head honcho takes the money on some pseudo-legal technicality, and it turns out these kinds of shakedowns are a regular thing in Shelby Springs with nearly everyone, even the judge (James Cromwell), in on the scheme. Terry is not leaving town without the money or his cousin, though, and the depths of local misdeeds are further exposed when Terry gets a reluctant hand from court paralegal Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb, “Soul Surfer”). Nothing is made about race outwardly in “Rebel Ridge,” but it’s there; in one scene, when pulled over, Terry asks the officer, “Are my hands in the right place?” Pierre (“Foe,” “Old”) does much with his emotive eyes and carries the film with a brimming rage that is tamped down constantly in favor of the more strategic move. There are many fine and realistic action sequences, but the film is as much a chess match of legal gamesmanship – yet when Terry acts, it is with the brutal, surgical precision of a martial arts expert trained in disarming and disabling. As the single mom with everything to lose, Robb is a standout, though Johnson and the rest playing the corrupt cops – and a few not so corrupt – are nuanced and polished in their supporting parts. It’s a well-executed thriller that lands somewhere between “And Justice for All” (1979) and “First Blood” (1982). This is the action film to put in your queue.

‘The Union’ (2024)

With a star-studded cast featuring Oscar winners Halle Berry (“Monster’s Ball”) and J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”), the reliable box office draw of Mark Wahlberg and a world-hopping budget, on paper “The Union” has all the ingredients for a mission win. Yet, like other recent Netflix-produced actioners( “Spenser Confidential,” “The Gray Man” and “Red Notice”), it falters in execution. Our can-do heroine Roxanne Hall (Berry) works for The Union, a CIA-like organization – think of it like the IMF in the Tom Cruise “Mission: Impossible” films. The opener has Roxanne, looking like Irma Vep as she darts through the alleyways of Trieste, Italy, arriving at the critical checkpoint too late, losing the assigned package and her entire team. To get that package – a hard drive bearing a coveted secret – the mission requires an “ordinary Joe” to go to “the auction.” Roxanne suggests her high school ex, Mike McKenna (Wahlberg), who still lives with his mom in Bruce Springsteen-worshipping New Jersey and hooks up with his seventh-grade math teacher (a very wry Dana Delany, who scores one of the film’s high points). Roxanne’s higher-up (Simmons) isn’t too keen on the idea, and gets even less so after Mike loses $4 million on his first foray. Directed by Julian Farino, “The Union” boasts a smattering of fine shootouts and car chases through the streets of London, but the rest is generic MacGuffin spy mash with a lazy ladling of rom-com. The leads have chemistry but are hobbled by the thin construct and mushy dialogue that often unnecessarily explains deets about “the Union” and “the auction.” If you do make it to the end, stick around for the credits, when pics of Roxanne and Mike from high school roll. Someone had a good time digging up teenage snaps of Berry and Wahlberg and fusing them. Besides Delany and a neat “Good Will Hunting” zinger, it’s one of the rare, well-earned grins in the film.

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The Instigators

10 Aug

A Boston movie misdemeanor, speeding onto streaming despite Damon, Affleck

To be clear, “The Instigators” is a bona fide Boston crime movie (are there other kinds of Boston movies?). That doesn’t mean it’s in the conversation with “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973), the best Boston movie ever, “Mystic River” (2003) or even “The Departed” (2006), but it does have more local accent and identifiable scenery than either of those latter two. Then again, so did the 2020 flops “Ava” and “Spenser Confidential” – the only reason to see those was to drink in their fond framing of our fair city; any other postal code and you’d be certain to spin the dial. Both came out during the Covid lockdown, when theaters were closed and films were going direct to streaming, but given the quality (despite A-lister casts with the likes of Jessica Chastain, Mark Wahlberg, John Malkovich and Colin Farrell) they’d be heading to streaming today too. “The Instigators” is partially in their company, as it got just a limited theatrical release last week (at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Boston’s Seaport) and drops on Apple TV+ Friday. It’s a much better film than “Spenser Confidential” or “Ava,” and does a decent job of leveraging Boston culchah and history rather than just using the city (and its filmmaking tax breaks) as a backdrop. But overall “The Instigators” is a missed opportunity considering its incredible cast, headlined by homeboys Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, who return home regularly to make Boston movies since their first pairing, “Good Will Hunting” (1997), which notched both actors’ big breakout.

The story, written by Affleck and Quincy-born scribe Chuck MacLean, the guy behind the Boston-set Kevin Bacon crime series “City on a Hill,” revolves around Damon’s Rory, an ex-Marine depressed over the $32,480 in child support he needs to come up with to see his kid again. To deal with his downcast condition he sees a therapist (Hong Chau, who paired with Damon in Alexander Payne’s 2017 Lilliputian satire, “Downsizing”) and teams up with Affleck’s boozy Cobby, fresh out of the slammer, to do a job for small-time mobster Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his partner, Richie Dechico (Alfred Molina), who operate out of a North End pastry shop. The gig is to raid the election headquarters of incumbent Mayor Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman), who is expected to win reelection in a landslide. The thought is that the cash vault at the victory fete will be brimming and all the celebratory attendees pickled. Walk in, walk out, simple, but the reality is not so.

First, Cobby and Rory get teamed up with a bungling petty hood named Scalvo (rapper Jack Harlow, who starred in the bland “White Men Can’t Jump” remake), who for some reason is given point; then, when in, there’s no cash in the vault because it got so full that there were earlier armored car pickups. Add to that the materializing realization that the election is no landslide, but a runoff dogfight in which upstart progressive Mark Choi (Ronnie Cho) may have done just enough last-second politicking to trigger a regime change. No matter who takes the reins, city hall has never seen a mayor like either of these two, and the lovely brutalist facade down in Government Center that we all have come to love and hate gets plenty of screen time as the meandering plot turns it into a “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969) shootout scene late in the game. 

For those who wax romantically about our town’s old-school legacy, there’s plenty of dive bar love and Bahston Easter eggs. “Badass” Quincy (who knew?) gets a gritty new recasting. It’s a cheeky and warmly nostalgic cinematic sojourn for us locals; it’s hard to see how that works for anyone not in the know.

The film’s helmed by Doug Liman, who made made a name for himself early with the indelible “Swingers” (1996) and “Go” (1999) before teaming with Damon in 2002 for the “The Bourne Identity.” His efforts alongside Tom Cruise for the sci-fi thriller “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014) and underappreciated “American Made” (2017) were equally as solid, but then there was the flat-footed “Jumper” (2008) and this year’s unnecessary “Road House” remake with Jake Gyllenhaal. With a middling title, “Instigators” feels like a concept in search of a story.

Besides “Good Will Hunting,” Damon and Affleck (brother Ben serves as a produsah) have emitted cinematic synergy in the Steven Soderbergh “Ocean’s” flicks as well as reteaming with “Good Will” director Gus van Sant in 2002’s “Gerry,” a dark existential tale based on a real-life Boston Globe intern lost in the New Mexico desert (part of Van Sant’s provocative realism films that include “To Die For,” “Paranoid Park” and “Elephant” – all great). Unfortunately, here they bounce off each other more than they play off each other. That said, the car chase scenes are top dollar – or at least the one in which Cobby and Rory take Chau’s psychiatrist hostage (she jumps in the car willing). The route takes them to some unlikely side venues, including the public alleyway parallel to Newbury Street and the Esplanade and tops the chase sequence in brother Ben’s “The Town” (2010).

Sadly, that’s as good as the film gets; the more it spins and recycles, the more it loses its mojo – and us. Toby Jones, Ving Rhames and Paul Walter Hauser (“Richard Jewell”) round out the veteran ensemble and the use of Petula Clark’s “Downtown” and Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air” help, but … 

For the record, as far as Boston locale authenticity and verisimilitude go, the original “Thomas Crown Affair” (1968) with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway still soars above the rest.

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